ROGERS AND PIANODuring their short-lived partnership,
British architect Richard Rogers(b. 1933) and Italian architect
Renzo Piano(b. 1937) used motifs and techniques from ordinary
industrial buildings in their design for the Georges Pompidou
National Center of Art and Culture in Paris, known popularly as
the “Beaubourg” (FIG. 36-67). The architects fully exposed the
anatomy of this six-level building, which is a kind of updated ver-
sion of the Crystal Palace (FIG. 30-48), and made its “metabolism”
visible. They color-coded pipes, ducts, tubes, and corridors accord-
ing to function (red for the movement of people, green for water,
blue for air-conditioning, and yellow for electricity), much as in a
sophisticated factory.
Critics who deplore the Beaubourg’s vernacular qualities dis-
paragingly refer to the complex as a “cultural supermarket” and point
out that its exposed entrails require excessive maintenance to protect
them from the elements. Nevertheless, the building has been popularwith visitors since it opened. The flexible inte-
rior spaces and the colorful structural body
provide a festive environment for the crowds
flowing through the building and enjoying its
art galleries, industrial design center, library,
science and music centers, conference rooms,
research and archival facilities, movie the-
aters, rest areas, and restaurant (which looks
down and through the building to the terraces
outside). The sloping plaza in front of the
main entrance has become part of the local
scene. Peddlers, street performers, Parisians,
and tourists fill this square at almost all hours
of the day and night. The kind of secular
activity that once occurred in the open spaces in front of cathedral
entrances now takes place next to a center for culture and popular
entertainment.Deconstructivism
In architecture, as in painting and sculpture, deconstruction as an ana-
lytical and design strategy emerged in the 1970s. Architectural Decon-
structivismseeks to disorient the observer. To this end, Deconstructivist
architects attempt to disrupt the conventional categories of architec-
ture and to rupture the viewer’s expectations based on them. Destabi-
lization plays a major role in Deconstructivist architecture. Disorder,
dissonance, imbalance, asymmetry, unconformity, and irregularity re-
place their opposites—order, consistency, balance, symmetry, regular-
ity, and clarity, as well as harmony, continuity, and completeness. The
haphazardly presented volumes, masses, planes, borders, lighting, loca-
tions, directions, spatial relations, as well as the disguised structural
facts, challenge the viewer’s assumptions about
architectural form as it relates to function. Ac-
cording to Deconstructivist principles, the very
absence of the stability of traditional categories
of architecture in a structure announces a “de-
constructed” building.
GÜNTER BEHNISCH Audacious in its
dissolution of form, and well along on the
path of deconstruction, is the Hysolar Insti-
tute (FIG. 36-68) at the University of Stutt-
gart, Germany.Günter Behnisch(b. 1922)36-67Richard Rogersand Renzo Piano,
Georges Pompidou National Center of Art and
Culture (the “Beaubourg”), Paris, France, 1977.
The architects fully exposed the anatomy of this
six-level building, as in the century-earlier Crystal
Palace (FIG. 30-48), and color-coded the internal
parts according to function, as in a factory.36-68Günter Behnisch,Hysolar Institute,
University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany, 1987.
The roof, walls, and windows of this Decon-
structivist structure seem to explode, avoiding
any suggestion of clear, stable masses and
frustrating the observer’s expectations of what
a building should look like.Architecture and Site-Specific Art 101136-67AFOSTER,
Hong Kong and
Shanghai Bank,
Hong Kong,
1979–1986.